Timeline looks to get on track in Alydar
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » There was a period late last spring and early summer when Timeline was considered a possible force in the 3-year-old division.
Unraced at two, the Hard Spun colt didn’t make his first start until March 17 and thus was too late to get on the Triple Crown trail. He won his first four races by a combined 20-plus lengths, the last two in a pair of Grade 3s, Belmont’s Peter Pan Stakes and the Pegasus at Monmouth.
Dispatched as the 3-2 favorite in the Haskell, Timeline finished a well-beaten fifth, compromised somewhat by a poor start. A seventh in the Pennsylvania Derby followed two months later, after which the Woodford Racing runner was given six months off.
In today’s $100,000 Alydar Stakes, making his fourth start of 2018 – he hit the board in the first three, winning once – Timeline was installed as the 7-5 morning-line favorite. Regular rider Javier Castellano gets the call in the 1 1/8-mile test on the main track.
Patch (5-2) is also looking to re-
start a career that tailed off toward the end of his sophomore year. A second in the Louisiana Derby earned him a spot in the Kentucky Derby, where he finished 14th. A decent third in the Belmont followed, but the Union Rags colt called it a year after running fourth as the favorite in the West Virginia Derby.
Patch won his allowance comebacker but finished a distant seventh last out in the Stephen Foster.
The Chilean-bred Kurilov (3-1) returns to dirt after an experiment versus top company on turf yielded mixed results. The 5-year-old Lookin At Lucky horse was necked by Heart to Heart in the Gulfstream Park Turf but finished up the track in the Old Forester Turf Classic and United Nations.
Outplay (3-1) had his moments as a 3-year-old, winning the Curlin Stakes here by 5 ¾ lengths but has been well-beaten in three previous tries in graded company. Most recently, he finished eighth in the Brooklyn Invitational (G2).
Realm (10-1) comes in off a half-length allowance score at Belmont on June 29. The 5-year-old Haynesfield gelding had not won in at least his last 11 starts. He has been in the money in three of the last four, however, and has trained well this summer at Belmont and Saratoga.